Flavored E-Cigs Create New Markets for Tobacco

Two statistics:

  1. Every day tobacco kills 14,000 people.
  2. Every day 100,000 young people start smoking.

“They are the replacements” for those who die from cancer, lung disease and heart disease, said Myra Wisotzky, technical advisor on tobacco control for the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

“When you have a product that kills, how on earth do you convince someone to take it up? The industry is great at this. Advertising works and they spend tens of millions of dollars to do it, particularly to kids,” Wisotzky said.

Tobacco companies are aggressively marketing flavored e-cigarettes to children and young people. There are at least 7,764 flavors – granny smith apple, wintergreen, Dr. Pepper, toasted marshmallow.

Wisotzky said market share of e-cigarettes could overtake conventional cigarettes within 10 years.

A resource for journalists: WHO’s Global Adult Tobacco Survey, where you can drill down to country-level data.

This program is funded by Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Lilly MDR-TB Project and TB Alliance. NPF is solely responsible for the content.

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